Scrape Across the Brain See What Arises
by Dark wolf's last day
Summary: 50 moments lost in time, occasionally remembered (mostly by Todd, but perhaps more accurately by Welton itself)


1\. Lamp

Grief is an individualized experience, one that Todd has never known before; that night, he looks out the window before going to sleep to avoid the image of half of his room stripped bare and lifeless, and for reasons he cannot explain, he leaves the light on his desk on.

2\. Collar

"Oh, hang on, Todd," Neil says, and he fixes the collar on Todd's shirt before they both go out to breakfast.

3\. Veil

Todd dreams of Neil—often—sometimes happy memories, sometimes happy what-ifs, and sometimes he dreams of death; it is always fogged over, unclear to his eyes, and Todd ironically feels merely like a specter as he watches a brain-constructed approximation of Neil raising a gun to his head.

4\. Rocket

"Look at this!" Meeks hisses once they're all settled in the cave, bringing out the photos he's been gushing about all day since he got them in the mail.

"Is that a potato?" Charlie asks.

"No, jackass! They're from Luna 3—it's the dark side of the Moon!"

Everyone oohs and ahhs over the pictures, making comments about how 'NASA is really in trouble now,' and Neil tightens the arm he has around Todd's shoulders.

5\. Brick

Neil walks right by his side, talking to him like they're friends already as he shows him around, and their shoes click against the brick walkways.

6\. Shake

Charlie's hand feels like a virus against his already aching body, already trying to wash the toxins from this awful day out into the snow, trembling as he runs off with the taste of vomit in his mouth.

7\. Impel

Todd doesn't really get it when Neil makes every possible effort to push him out of his comfort zone, but when they get back from their first Dead Poets Society meeting, still trying to quiet their giggles even as they shut the door to their dorm behind them, and Neil dramatically tugs Todd's scarf off of him and whispers, with a light in his eyes, "Carpe diem," Todd's not sure if he really minds anymore.

8\. Dull

"Your hair is such a nice color," Neil says, carding his fingers through the hair Todd always thought was just a bit too dark yet just a bit too light to be anything special.

9\. String

Everyone keeps looking at Todd like they can see a snipped red string trailing limply from his finger.

10\. Jumbled

Todd has seen commercials about homosexuality before, all disparaging the concept, often times portraying the homosexual as a predatory older man, but this thing with Neil feels nothing like that—he _knows_ it's worthy of celebration.

11\. Evening

Neil pops a candle he traded Charlie for for some cigarettes and some leftovers onto the pile of textbooks he made into a makeshift table in the middle of the room and says, "Isn't it a lovely light?"

12\. Card

It's just a folded sheet of paper with 'Happy belated birthday, Todd!' scrawled over it with all the Dead Poets' signatures, but Todd has to stop himself from crying over it all the same.

13\. Abaft

"O Captain! my Captain!" Todd calls out atop his desk; though, he has never felt less in control in his life.

14\. Fine

"How are you doing, son?" Todd's dad asks him over the phone after Todd's mom passed the phone off to him mostly just out of obligation.

Todd is just as closed off and quiet as ever when he answers, "I'm fine," but for once, it's not a lie.

15\. Unnatural

"Do you think it's…do you think it's unnatural to feel this way?" Neil asks, sniffling in the chair across from Keating's with his head down.

"I don't know much about that," Keating says, "but I know that love is the most powerful feeling in the world, and I know that just because something isn't natural doesn't mean it can't be incredible or worth fighting for."

16\. Resident

"When are you coming back to our room?" Todd asks; he's shocked at the words that leave his mouth, but Neil doesn't seem at all unsettled.

"I don't know—sometime before Hager comes in to kick me out," Neil says, turning his page.

17\. Sentence

"You missed a comma here," Todd says, halfway leaning off of his bed as he proofreads Neil's essay.

18\. Curtain

Todd had never known he could be so proud of someone until the curtain closed.

19\. Publication

 _Dedicated to Neil Perry: a thousand more would never come close to characterizing the truth of my regard for you._

20\. Realism

"Hope is a dangerous thing, Keating. I can't help but think one of these boys are going to get hurt one day."

21\. Aware

"Hey, no, you can't just barge in, Pittsie—you might _see something_ ," Charlie says.

"Oh, you're sure right, Charlie."

Neil yanks their door open. "Were you two talking about us out here?" he says with an all too knowing smile.

Todd hadn't even known that anyone outside of Charlie had known about them, but it eases some of his fears.

22\. Blast

When "Dream Lover" comes on Meeks and Pitts's radio, Neil and Todd share half-secret smiles as they swing each other around on the roof.

23\. Craven

Todd crumples under the weight of his father and Nolan's gazes and the signatures staring back at him from the page.

24\. Decoration

They leave the God of the Cave there.

25\. Fortunate

No matter the pain, if Todd had the choice, he would always choose to have met Neil.

26\. Velvet

The warmth of another mouth is a foreign thing, but it is not unpleasant.

27\. Respect

Todd is so used to being pushed places he doesn't want to go that he's thoroughly surprised when Neil doesn't object at all to him not wanting to read during meetings.

28\. Cobweb

Todd supposes one thing that might have given them away was their tendency to linger when they brushed cobwebs out of each other's hair inside of or when leaving the cave.

29\. Terrific

Neil is amazing during the play, but Todd knew that already—he watched him practice all the time.

30\. Throat

Pressing a kiss onto Neil's throat is a bit of a curious experiment, but watching Neil jump so harshly that he hits his head against the wall makes him certain that it's something he wants to do again and again; even though this time, he laughs until his side is sore.

31\. Try

"I can't get the pacing of these lines right!"

"Yes, you can. You can do it—I know you can."

32\. Introduce

Todd has to go to Jeffrey's wedding the summer after Neil dies, and the whole time he has to keep his head down and try not to cry.

33\. Cope

Coping isn't even part of the equation at first; after the snow chills each molten emotion out of his body, for a while, all Todd can do is stand in his room and exist.

34\. Library

"Think about it this way, Todd," Charlie says, "if everything else goes to hell, you can work in a library!"

Todd is about to say 'That isn't helping, Charlie,' but Neil cuts in with, "I think you'd be an exceptionally cute librarian. You're already an exceptionally cute poet."

Charlie mutters something under his breath that sounds like 'lovebirds.'

35\. Shell

When Neil died, Todd lost something that he didn't get back until after he left Welton.

36\. Troubled

Todd will always hate himself for not noticing.

37\. Privacy

Sometimes, they'd pull the sheets over their heads even though they were the only ones in the room and it was moonlight-early in the morning, as if to create a space that was only theirs in the world.

38\. Kettle

The tea cup shakes in Neil's hand; he already knows what's going to happen and what he's going to do.

39\. Discreet

Two pinky fingers brush quietly together in the dark in the cave.

40\. Vein

Sometimes, ducking under branches and climbing amongst rock, they come back with tiny scratches all across their bodies, and sometimes, pressed against each other at night, they press kisses into the openings to nicked veins.

41\. Conscious

It must be a dream—it _must_ be.

42\. Guess

"Do you think he is?"

"For you? Definitely."

"I'm _serious_ —and what makes you think that?"

The conversation is hissed and Todd can barely hear it, but he has a suspicion that Neil and Charlie are talking about him.

43\. Consensus

"I'm just not convinced," Knox says.

"Are you serious, Knox? I'm telling you they are!"

"Why don't we ask everyone else, then, if you're so sure?"

44\. Overt

Though it's a little terrifying in the moment, after the fact, the look of complete and utter surprise that crosses Knox's face when he first sees Neil and Todd kiss—despite knowing that they're together—is hilarious.

45\. Shallow

Young love is one thing, but quick love is another, and they both seep shallowly into the skin, taking over but not yet taking home.

46\. Reason

Todd isn't particularly fond of this colleague of his in the first place, but nothing he has done has made him physically jump back quite like this.

"No, no, it's just…I don't react well around guns."

47\. Brother

"One day, you'll know what love is like too, Todd!" says a newly-engaged Jeffrey over the phone.

Todd doesn't respond, a sick little grimace on his lips.

48\. Originate

One place where Todd, in the future, would pinpoint his senses of self as becoming completely separate would be after Neil's death.

49\. Ponder

Sometimes, Neil's eyes wander to look at his new roommate while they're sitting in class; he can't shake the feeling that there's something special about him, something worth coaxing to the surface.

50\. Summer

Todd loses himself in idle heat, torn between two post-trauma personas.

He'll get himself back.


End file.
